It’s sinful to fish and kill these ancient creatures up from the deep for minor scientific progress.
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They’re predatory scavengers that wouldn’t hesitate to eat you if it had the opportunity. I would much rather conduct biomedical research on sharks than mice or rats.
Ah yes potentially getting us one step closer to immortality, hardly worth killing an animal!
I mostly eat vegan because I do have a strong dislike of factory farming and the way animals are treated there. But killing animals is a fact of life and I think scientific progress is a very valid reason to do so.
To put it in perspective, a lot of shark young will kill each other in the womb such that only the strongest is birthed. These animals eat other animals alive, etc.. etc.. My point being it is not like the option is between a rosy utopia or human-inflicted suffering.
I'm not against scientific research per se or living a bit more but... is immortality (or living for, say, 200 years or more) really something we should strive for?
Many aspects of human society assume, one way or another, that our life expectancy is fairly limited. From politics (even absolute monarchs or dictators eventually die), to economics (think about retirement, for example), demographics (if everyone is immortal and everyone keeps having children, what happens?), even psychology ("everything passes").
Are we willing to throw these implications away? What would be the purpose?
> Many aspects of human society assume, one way or another, that our life expectancy is fairly limited
Assumptions can change. Each of our technological shifts was more upending than longer healthspans would be—most of the West is already a gerontocracy.
> What would be the purpose?
To not die horribly.
That’s throwing the baby with the bathwater, there’s hundreds ways to die not horribly. And for an "immortal" (as in "not-aging"), there’s still ways to die horribly.
Life is more beautiful when you live it for its experiences, not for the fear of loosing it.
> throwing the baby with the bathwater, there’s hundreds ways to die not horribly
The baby in your analogy being aging?
> there’s still ways to die horribly
Sure. The purpose would be remove a common cause of dying horribly.
(And in no world with longevity treatments would it be mandatory. People and populations who like aging and Alzheimer’s can keep partying like it’s 2025.)
> Assumptions can change. Each of our technological shifts was more upending than longer healthspans would be—most of the West is already a gerontocracy.
Sure but is gerontocracy a good thing, then? I’m not against older people, but shifting the whole demographic towards them is not looking good for retirement, social constructs, and more. Immortality would bring this even further, especially when meant literally.
> > What would be the purpose? To not die horribly.
Well ok, but even if you can’t die horribly (ignoring murders,…) you can still suffer horribly, physically or otherwise, for a variety of reasons. Starving, rape, physical and psychological abuse, painful diseases even if non lethal,… still exist regardless of immortality. It’s not like immortal people are necessarily happy or good.
> shifting the whole demographic towards them is not looking good for retirement, social constructs, and more
I'm genuinely not seeing the problem. Longer lives means more productive lives. (A massive fraction of healthcare costs are related to obesity and aging. A minority of medicine is in trauma.)
> Immortality would bring this even further, especially when meant literally
We don't have a path to entropy-defying immortality. Not aging doesn't mean literal immortality.
> you can still suffer horribly, physically or otherwise, for a variety of reasons
The fact that you're levying this argument should seal the case. It's an argument that can be made against anything good.
Yes, of course it can be made against anything good, but what I mean is… is death truly the worst thing? Isn’t it better to focus on other ways to reduce suffering? Unexpected death is of course tragic, but everything eventually stops. I understand looking into ways to treat diseases, reduce other unpleasant events and possibly reduce pain (physical or otherwise), but immortality to me looks like something you (a generic you) just for the sake of it. Also because, when you think about it, you only die once, but you experience suffering in a variety of ways. In addition, death is a way to “enforce” change. Sometimes it’s bad, other times it’s good.
> Longer lives means more productive lives.
When you work until you’re, say, 80, what happens? You have less time to enjoy some rest, you still do your work (which means, if everything else stays equal, that there is less room for people taking your job and gaining experience because you are as productive as always).
> Isn’t it better to focus on other ways to reduce suffering?
Why?
> ways to treat diseases
Aging underlies tons of diseases. (It’s similar to obesity in that way.)
> death is a way to “enforce” change. Sometimes it’s bad, other times it’s good
This is true of everything bad. You could use this logic for ceasing research into curing cancer, trauma medicine or seatbelts and traffic lights.
> of course it can be made against anything good
Which makes it a pointless argument. (And implicit concession that you’re arguing against something good.)
> When you work until you’re, say, 80, what happens? You have less time to enjoy some rest
…why? You have more time.
In a world without aging, retirement at 80 would be an objectively better deal than retiring at 60 today. You’d be retiring with a body that hasn’t started failing. And you’d have more years, on average, ahead of you.
> there is less room for people taking your job and gaining experience because you are as productive as always
Lump of labour fallacy. (Average adult lifespans have gone up over the last two centuries. That has accompanied more, not less, labour-market dynamism.)